The present invention relates to a music layout device and method suitable for visually displaying music or musical score based on performance data in electronic musical instruments and computer music facilities, as well as a recording medium containing a program for use in such music layout.
Conventional automatic performance data for use in electronic musical instruments and computer music facilities are generally constructed in such a format where data designating a pitch of each tone to be generated etc. are combined with information indicative of specific timing for generating or deadening the tone. Specifically, the timing information represents a time point of a performance event, a time interval between the events, or the like. To visually display music or musical score based on such automatic performance data, it is, in principle, necessary to identify particular types of individual notes and rests. The types of the notes and rests can also be identified on the basis of duration of each tone (i.e., tone-generation lasting period) and time intervals between successive tone-generation timing through analysis of the automatic performance data. Further, a vertical position of each note on a staff can be identified from its pitch, while a horizontal position of the note on the staff can be identified from its length with a certain degree of accuracy.
However, the displayed width of some note marks do not necessarily correspond linearly (proportionally) to the predetermined actual length of the notes; for example, although a quarter note is greater in actual length than an eighth note, it would have a smaller displayed width than that of the eighth note because the latter has a so-called "hook". Due to the lack of the exact linear or proportional correspondence between the displayed width of the note mark and the actual note length, notating or allocating given notes on the staff on the basis of their actual lengths alone may undesirably result in the note marks overlapping each other. Thus, there has been a need to allocate the individual notes on the staff on a measure-by-measure basis in such a manner that their respective note marks do not overlap each other.
When a performance of a plurality of parts is to be represented in musical notation, a musical score is generally used which is constructed of a plurality of rows of staves corresponding to the parts. Piano score, for example, comprises two staves: a first staff for the lower range (left-hand) performance that is represented by the "F clef"; and a second staff for the upper range (right-hand) performance that is represented by the "G clef". However, in such a case where the musical score is expressed by the plurality of rows of staves based on automatic performance data for the plurality of parts, the above-mentioned approach of allocating individual notes while preventing overlaps of their respective note marks alone would unavoidably lead to considerable degradation in the external appearance of the score; namely, because the performance data normally differ between the parts, the corresponding beat positions in the rows of staves would deviate or misalign from each other, so that the displayed musical score tends to be difficult to read.
Further, the automatic performance data also contain data designating grace notes or other ornaments, such as arpeggio or glissando, which are similar to the data of independent notes. Thus, allocating the automatic performance data directly on the staves would cause significant inconveniences. For example, the glissando data would result in a number of notes being densely packed within a short time period; thus, if the musical score is displayed with no particular modification, considerable overlap between the notes would occur, thus making it even more difficult to read the notes on the displayed score. To prevent such overlap between the notes, there arises an additional need to considerably increase the displayed width (horizontal length) of each measure.